NASA scrubs launch pad rehearsal for Artemis I moon mission after safety concern A piece of the Artemis 1 rocket is transported at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., before sunrise Thursday, July 30, 2020, after making a 13-day journey on a barge from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The section is a stage adapter for NASA’s massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is under development for crewed lunar flights in the Artemis mission, with future plans for possible human missions to Mars. The Artemis 1 launch is currently scheduled for November, 2021. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel)
NASA scrubbed a wet dress rehearsal on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center for the Artemis I mission to the moon Sunday because of concerns over the ability to safely fuel the rocket.
The decision came on what would have been the final day of a three-day launch rehearsal “due to loss of ability to pressurize the mobile launcher,” a statement from NASA said.
“The fans are needed to provide positive pressure to the enclosed areas within the mobile launcher and keep out hazardous gases,” the statement said. “Technicians are unable to safely proceed … without this capability.”
NASA teams working on the wet dress rehearsal will meet to discuss next steps, the statement continued. Monday is the soonest the rehearsal could continue.
The team had plans to fill and drain the core stage with 730,000 gallons of super-cooled liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and bring the countdown clock to nearly 0 to test prelaunch steps.
“Although the engines will not be lit during the test, launch controllers are using the wet dress rehearsal to practice countdown milestones like they would on launch day,” NASA said in earlier statement before the rehearsal was stopped Sunday.
This test, which began Friday, is the first time the entire Space Launch System, Orion capsule and Exploration Ground Systems teams have all been connected for integrated testing.
Artemis I is an uncrewed flight that will send Orion farther into space than any other human-rated spacecraft has ever traveled — 280,000 miles away, which is 40,000 miles beyond the moon. The SLS rocket will surpass the power of the Saturn V rockets of the Apollo program, producing 8.8 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.
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